Housing (rent, condos, low crime)

[spltend]

Hi, I'm graduating in less than a year and trying to decide where to move. I want to live downtown in a condo w/ 1 to 2 BR and in the price range of about $200-250K. Now I know housing in DC is expensive in general but I was able to find some condos that fit this description in NW DC (which is probably where I'd want to be). I've read other places you won't find a good condo in a good neighborhood for <300-400K. Is this true? And would it be better to just rent if I was looking to only stay in 1 place for about 3 years? Thanks.

[DC Person]

there may be some places u can find outside of nw for a reasonable price in a good neighborhood. have u considered some parts of the sw waterfront? there are some nice cheap places there. or how about the eastern market/capitol hill closer to east capitol st? im not sayin theyre dream neighborhoods, but they have a fairly low crime rate, and is an exciting place to live. but as for nw, it will be much harder to find an affordable place unless u want to move east of rock creek park which has some shady neighborhoods. youll find something.

[erinkris]

There are a number of beautiful condos in Brookland. It is in NE, but if you check actual crime stats, you will see that zip codes 20017 and 20018 actually have much lower crime than other parts of NW. You can get a condo in Brookland area for 250k. I have never had any problems living in Brookland and love it!